The Washington critic., 1887-10-12
WASHINGTON, OCTOBER ta, 1ss
"PERsoNAL LIBERTY"

should be passed permitting the sale OF
liquors from o'clock In the aftcrno IN
Ill midnight ON Sunday"
II will be remembered that Mayor
Hewitt favored the Sunday liquor
traffic between certain hours, but this
was simply as local measure, intended
as q modification Of the Sunday closing
law and not as a general proposition.
The projectors OF the new party sub.
NIT 1t, however, as National issue.
Short as the platform Is 1t means u
great deal-a great deal more than the
mere privilege of drinking on Sunday
afternoons and evenings.
If it were this alone that was sought
reasons might he cited in favor of
granting the privilege. There are
many people who think 1t no olfense to
good morals to take Sunday drink
and as long as the muvums and H..
brarics, the art galleries aud public
gardens remain closed to those to whom
Sunday affords the only opportunity
for visiting such institutions, the ranks
Of the Sunday drinkers will continue TO
be recruited.
The State does nothing to discourage
this sort Of indulgence, excepting to
inhibit 1t by laws that everybody who
Is so disposed can evade.
How much wiser to supplement the
church for the rellgiously inclined with
means of recreation and Improvement
calculated to promote, rather than to
impair, general respect for the day.
But we are digresslng.
The Personal Liberty party has not so
much In view better observance Of
Sunday as It's entire non. observance.
Its leaders are well aware that If the
liquor traffic is recognized as legiti-
mate Sunday business, there certainly
can be no reason for placing restrictions
upon other yocations against which the
same objections do not hold. Beginning
with the saloon as an entering wedge,
they would end by wholly secularizing
day which, In the estimation of large
majority Of people, possesses fixed
and inallenable sacredness.
This revolution can never be wrought
In the United States, and 1t ought not
to be. In the natural order of things,
there has been instituted from the be.
ginning one day ofrest from labor-no,
necessarily of idleness nor of straight.
laced sanciimoniousness but OF rational
repose, as far as may be, from the cares
that infest the rest of the week.
The proper observance of the day
cannot be enforced by Puritauic ordi
nances, neither should 1t be antago
nized by an unrestricted license 1t IL
matter that will be governed by an
Innate public sentiment, which in this
country at least, or in the greater par
OF 1t, will not tolerate nor consent tc
the placing of Sunday upon the sam,
secular plane with other days.
The CRITIC has always maintaine
that the libraries and museums ant
other like institutions should be opened
on Sunday as one of the most eifectiv,
means of making 1t what 1t should b
the best day of the seven, the mos
enjoyable aud instructive and leas
contaminated with sordld, vicious o
mercenary characteristics; but to ig
more its religious distinction from othe
days and challenge the great purpos
OF its institution by converting 1t into
day Of general traffic or intemperat
dissipation, would be a calamity to ou
civilization.
For these reasons we cannot trail
under the banners OF the new party
Our devotion to personal liberty know
NO bounds save those of reason; bu
between liberty as thus limited, and II
cense as overstopping all limits. ther
Is a great gulf that we could not eros
II we would, and would not If we could
IT WAS hardly necessary for Attor
General Garland, having no juris
diction over State courts, to correc
the misrepresentation that he had In
terfered with legal proceedings in tn
Iowa eviction cases, but he has don
all that properly belongs to him to d.
in the malter-tallen steps to ascertai,
the rights involved as shown by tn
records of the Interior Department.
10 TO be hoped that no unnecessar
delays will occur In their determine
tiop. Either one party or the othe
concerned must be in the wrong, an
the Iowa officials hold that 1t is not tn
settlers. The latter, to all appearance
entered their lands in good faith wit
The knowledge and assent Of the Gel
eral Government, The alien syudica
seek by worse than highway robbel
10 obtain possession under worlhle
title 1t is question of the highe
Importance and should be adiustt
without any red tape circumlocutlo
REroKrs from Europe are to Il
effect that Emperor Dom Pedro {
Brazil contemplales the abdication
his throne on account of failing healtl
In this event he will be succeeded |
the Crown Princess label now
years of age, and the wife Of Prime
Louis of Orleans. Prince Louis, or,
he Is better known, the Comte d Eu,
the eldest son of Due de Nemours.
ANOTHER railroad catastrophe, wit
its horrors intensified as usual by IL
deadly car stove, is reported from Ii
diana. The casualties are numeror
and terrible, but the list would ha'
been comparatively small and relieve
OF Its more agonizing features had
not been for the fire which followed til